Author: Arvind Lavakare
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: June 17, 2003
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jun/17arvind.htm
Barely two months after it was launched
at Srinagar, India's nth effort to sign peace with
Pakistan has gone kaput. Or so it
should be via by the insulting interview of Pakistan's President to an
Indian television channel last week.
'We don't trust you [India] when
you say we should focus on trade. We see it as an attempt to sideline the
main issue of Kashmir.' That one sound byte from Pervez Musharraf tells
all -- about his abusive abrasiveness and dripping hatred towards India.
The words confirm that the man is not a diplomat but a demon when it comes
to India.
Look at his gall. Despite the 44
per cent turnout in the J&K assembly polls last October being internationally
regarded as free and fair, he says he is clear on one thing: 'The people
of Kashmir do not want to be part of India.' Then there's that vicarious
contempt about resumption of cricket ties: 'Let me tell you that my players
don't want to play with India.' To rub salt in, Musharraf doesn't rule
out a repeat of Kargil '99.
One had hoped that our ministry
of external affairs would react to this bile with a strong protest note
to Islamabad and the rest of the world, condemning the uncouth remarks
of the head of a sovereign country, and calling for an unconditional apology
from him, failing which, India's nth initiative for peace with Pakistan
would lie filed away for mere record.
But it was a fond hope really. Genteel
India, ever the sucker, had a spokesman of the MEA voice mere 'dissent'
over Musharraf's comments. The prime minister of the insulted nation had
chosen to remain silent and, strangely, the media didn't apparently approach
him for reaction.
It took our loh purush in far away
London to almost convulse at Musharraf's affront -- and never mind that
it was nearly 48 hours late. Speaking to a BBC Hindi programme on Monday,
June 16, he interpreted Musharraf's comment on Kargil to mean 'fruitful
talks will not be possible' with Pakistan.
Strangely, the strong reaction from
L K Advani, the country's deputy prime minister, mind you, did not make
the headlines of Mumbai's two leading English-language newspapers of the
next day, June 17.
But why the 'talks' at all Mr Advani?
Why not admit that our nth peace initiative was itself ill-timed and ill-judged?
Consider the facts of the last two
months.
Right from the bolt-from-the-blue
offer of friendship at Srinagar on April 18, India, genteel India, decided
to bend backwards to smoke the peace pipe with Pakistan. We had quickly
reappointed a high commissioner in Islamabad, offered the resumption of
the Delhi-Lahore bus service, and diluted our earlier pre-condition regarding
elimination of cross-border terrorism before talks could begin.
Even as the detailed road map of
step-by-step approach mentioned by our foreign minister was far from being
put in practice, The Hindu of May 28, 2003 reported Prime Minister Vajpayee
in New Delhi declaring that India wanted to start talks with Pakistan 'as
soon as possible.'
On May 28, in Berlin, Vajpayee went
on to concede that resolving the Kashmir issue would require 'serious compromises'
which he was 'prepared to negotiate' -- with not even a hint that Pakistan
must first allow over-flight on its territory to Indian aircrafts, must
reciprocate the Most Favoured Nation status to trade with India, must close
its terrorist training camps and stop cross- border infiltration altogether.
(UNI report in The Hindu, May 29, 2003).
In Chicago last Friday, Advani echoed
his master's voice. 'There has to be give and take in negotiations,' he
said in a public speech. (The Times of India, Mumbai, June 14, 2003). Pradeep
Kaushal of The Indian Express was more explicit. In his despatch datelined
Chicago June 13, he reported Advani as saying that India was ready for
a compromise on Jammu and Kashmir and quoted him as saying: 'We have to
see what kind of compromises are possible even now,' adding that talks
could help one decide these compromises.
Why this unholy hurry to sit across
the summit table with Pakistan? Is there some deadline of history set for
Vajpayee's hat trick? Or has President Bush set a deadline -- in exchange
for what? No one knows, for no one but no one is opening his mouth on that,
and the media is just not investigating, so engulfed and euphoric as it
has been in the 'peace with Pakistan' initiative. All, it would seem, are
simply itching for India's 'talk' with Pakistan, even if it be in poetry
newly composed for the special occasion.
It's really been appalling, this
whole turn-around of ours in dealing with Pakistan -- from 'We don't want
to see your face' for 18 months since that attack on our Parliament to
'Come, come, I want to so badly talk to you' presently. Sonia Gandhi was
right when she recently attacked the Vajpayee government's Pak policy as
lacking in 'clarity, consistency and conviction.'
It's been incomprehensible -- this
talk of 'talks as soon as possible,' of 'give and take in negotiations,'
of the need for 'serious compromises,' of 'talks to decide the compromises'
-- even as Pakistan has said that it will not budge on its stance on Kashmir,
that it will not accept the Line of Control as the new border, that it
will not reciprocate India's gesture with the Most Favoured Nation benefit
as yet, that it will not allow us to fly over its territory as yet and
that it will not deport 20 hardened criminals wanted by us; Nor has it
stopped its constant infiltration of our borders and its frequent-artillery-fire
across-the Line of Control scheme. Yet, talk with it, we will, we have
decided it.
The contrast in the attitudes of
India and Pakistan to peace was so stark in recent weeks that it was almost
demeaning for a nation that is much bigger in numbers and territory and
GDP, much more endowed in resources, much more respected internationally
and much more versatile than its neighbour, which the world at large has
silently pronounced as a 'rogue state.' Or have Vajpayee and Advani been
cocky in believing that whatever be Pakistan's rhetoric (for 'domestic
consumption' as is usually stated), they can still work out an honourable
pact with that country?
In a press release issued in Chennai
on May 30, Subramanian Swamy, the Janata Party president, made the point
that Vajpayee could not talk of a partition of Kashmir along the LoC without
seeking Parliament's approval. (The Hindu, May 31, 2003). As a matter of
fact, the constitutional requirements of bringing about any 'compromise'
on the alteration of the existing boundaries of Jammu and Kashmir were
pointed out in this column of May 6, 2003. But the BJP- led government
that otherwise talks of a 'consensus' on almost anything and everything
-- from the setting up of a judicial commission and labour reforms to the
women's reservation bill -- does not even talk of talking to Parliament
on 'serious compromises' with Pakistan.
Even after Musharraf's latest rebuff
expressing lack of trust in India, Advani still talks about 'talks' with
Pakistan, his only concern being that they will not be 'fruitful' -- whatever
that means. The basic question remains: why these 'talks' at all until
Pakistan sheds its organic hostility towards India?
One suspects that the meek, tolerant
and idealistic Hindu mind is at work here once again -- like the Shankaracharya
of Puri saying at Srinagar the other day that whatever the Supreme Court's
verdict on the Ayodhya case, Hindus will build a mosque on the land adjoining
that on which the Muslims will build a temple for Ram.
If that is indeed so, it's apt to
remind the venerable three, Vajpayee, Advani and the Shankaracharya, of
the book Thoughts On Pakistan (Thacker & Co, Bombay, 1941) written
by a certain Dr B R Ambedkar, MA, PhD and barrister of law.
Debunking the Hindus of his time
who forgot the history of the Indian Muslims' psyche and therefore opposed
the carving out of Pakistan as a separate nation, Ambedkar believed that
'those Hindus who are guiding the destinies of their fellows have lost
what Carlyle calls the Seeing Eye and are walking in the glamour of certain
vain illusions.'
Unless that sort of blindness is
indeed the condition of our venerable trinity, Musharraf's latest missile
ought to make them see light and some stunning stars as well.
